| 1. |
- Wästfelt, Anders, et al.
(författare)
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Landscape care paradoxes: Swedish landscape care arrangements in a European context
- 2012
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Ingår i: Geoforum. - : Elsevier BV. - 0016-7185 .- 1872-9398. ; 43:6, s. 1171-1181
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Contemporary European agriculture has a number of additional aims beside of food production, such as safeguarding environmental services and conservation values. Substantial efforts at official levels are aimed towards sustainable development but also towards maintaining values of what may be termed van- ishing landscapes. Selected areas and landscape features are set aside for protection or restoration. Indi- vidual efforts of this type have a long history in Sweden, and the issue has recently received increased attention, primarily due to more ambitious government goals concerning biodiversity conservation and Sweden’s ratification of the European Landscape Convention. This has resulted in an increased scientific and official interest in vanishing values in the rural landscape, where parts of Eastern Europe, such as the Maramures district in Romania, have been used as model examples of land use regimes which in the past was common in Sweden. In this context, the dilemma of romanticizing peasants’ use of land is highlighted and discussed more than has hitherto been done. This paper sheds light on some paradoxes inherent in official policies in relation to land use practices concerning the management of rural land- scapes in Sweden, and relates the Swedish situation to a contrasting example of landscape practice in Romania. We discuss the concept of landscape care in relation to the construction and perception of land- scape values and valuable landscapes through the lenses of rural realities and official policies. When Swed- ish authorities engage in the promotion of landscape care, they tend to work with slices of land, specific predefined values and individual farmers, and they often disregard the need to treat the landscape as a socio-ecological complex dynamic in space and time. We discuss how environmental policy generally could be improved through the adoption of a more inclusive and flexible approach towards aiding the dif- ferent aims inherent in multifunctional rural landscapes.
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| 2. |
- Andersson Djurfeldt, Agnes, et al.
(författare)
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Pro-poor agricultural growth – Inclusion or differentiation? Village level perspectives from Zambia
- 2016
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Ingår i: Geoforum. - : Elsevier BV. - 0016-7185. ; 75, s. 220-233
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Over the past decade pro-poor agricultural growth strategies intended to raise smallholder productivity and increase commercialization among smallholders have been put forth as the key method for addressing poverty in rural Africa. By contrast perspectives that challenge this model question the market optimism and presumptions of higher smallholder efficiency that underpin the pro-poor agricultural growth model. Little longitudinal data exists that can shed light on questions related to sustainability of growth patterns and their distributional consequences at the village level, however. This paper uses a mixed methods approach to trace growth dynamics as well as the distributional aspects of such growth in terms of access to agrarian resources and local level labour relations. Quantitative data was used to select three villages in Zambia that had experienced pro-poor agricultural growth between 2002 and 2008. These villages were re-surveyed in 2013 and supplementary qualitative data was collected. Two of the three villages showed sustainable growth patterns. While the sources of such growth as well their distributional outcomes were different in the two villages, the reasons for such differences are related to Zambian agricultural policy as well as geography.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Fischer, Klara
(författare)
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Why Africa’s New Green Revolution is failing – Maize as a commodity and anti-commodity in South Africa
- 2022
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Ingår i: Geoforum. - : Elsevier BV. - 0016-7185. ; 130, s. 96-104
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The South African Government has for the past two decades spent significant resources on introducing smallholders to Genetically Modified (GM) maize with the aim to make agriculture a way out of poverty. However smallholder farming continues to decline and poverty is on the rise in the country. The present paper aims to explain this failure of the government to support its smallholders by describing the intra-actions between maize, politics and technological development in South African history. Importantly maize is understood here as an agent in that its materialities are not only being impacted by, but are also having impact on the outcome of farming practices and wider political economies. The paper describes how maize, as a result of intra-action between maize biology and choices made by farmers, politicians and breeders during the colonial era and apartheid, developed in parallel as a commodity serving the settler farmers, and an anti-commodity, or escape crop, providing subsistence to marginalised smallholders. While South Africa today is a democracy that spends significant resources on improving smallholder livelihoods, recent technological development and market concentration have increased rather than decreased the gap between commodity- and anti-commodity maize. As a result new GM and hybrid maize varieties introduced to smallholders today are badly equipped to facilitate a crop led New Green Revolution.
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| 5. |
- Harnesk, David
(författare)
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Biomass-based energy on the move – The geographical expansion of the European Union’s liquid biofuel regulation
- 2019
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Ingår i: Geoforum. - : Elsevier BV. - 0016-7185. ; 98
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The growth of biomass-based markets for transport fuel is an expanding geographical process driven by regulation in the European Union (EU). Based on a certification scheme that illustrates the regulatory mechanisms in the EU’s liquid biofuel market, this article explains how larger processes of territorialisation and uneven development interact with specific processes of commodity production and flexing in this expansion. The study combines a content analysis of certification standards with a spatio-temporal analysis of data from certificates distributed 2010–2017. It shows that certification standards mirror EU regulation and, importantly, how the activities of firms extend EU rule beyond its territory. It suggests that the regulatory mechanisms seem to promote vertical integration, encourage large-scale production via horizontal integration of several different industries, and exclude small-scale production. Hence, it argues that the EU-based territorialisation re-produces historical patterns of territorial accumulation of land-based resources, wherein agro-industrial economic clusters in the global North accumulate value by exploiting biomass producers in the global South.
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| 6. |
- Hirons, M., et al.
(författare)
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Pursuing climate resilient coffee in Ethiopia – A critical review
- 2018
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Ingår i: Geoforum. - : Elsevier BV. - 0016-7185. ; 91, s. 108-116
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper provides a multi-scalar examination of the Ethiopian coffee sector and its pursuit of climate resilience. Concern is growing about the potential impact of climate change on Arabica coffee in Ethiopia and the 25 million livelihoods it supports. Arabica coffee has a relatively narrow envelope of climatic suitability and recent studies suggest that the area of bioclimatically suitable space for the species in its native Ethiopia could decline dramatically in the coming decades. We adopt a critical perspective on resilience that reflects on the situated nature of the ecology/science of coffee and climate change and the operation of social, economic, and discursive power across scales, paying particular attention to the differentiated impacts of climate change and associated resilience strategies. This analysis begins by reviewing Ethiopia's Climate Resilient Green Economy strategy and argues that the current lack of attention to coffee is inappropriate considering the coffee sector's vulnerability to climate change, economic importance and association with forests. The paper then examines the contemporary coffee sector which provides the context for reflecting on three potential responses to the threat climate change poses; a spatial response from farmers, adaptive farm management responses such as changing shade levels and the development of the country's genetic resources to cultivate improved varieties. The analysis explores the disconnect between the interventions emerging from national and international institutions and the local context. The multi-scale approach highlights the presence of complex normative trade-offs associated with pursing climate resilience strategies and reinforces the importance of appreciating the dynamics which influence decision-making in the country.
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| 7. |
- Wästfelt, Anders
(författare)
-
Landscape care paradoxes: Swedish landscape in a European context
- 2012
-
Ingår i: Geoforum. - : Elsevier BV. - 0016-7185. ; 43, s. 1171-1181
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Contemporary European agriculture has a number of additional aims beside of food production, such as safeguarding environmental services and conservation values. Substantial efforts at official levels are aimed towards sustainable development but also towards maintaining values of what may be termed vanishing landscapes. Selected areas and landscape features are set aside for protection or restoration. Individual efforts of this type have a long history in Sweden, and the issue has recently received increased attention, primarily due to more ambitious government goals concerning biodiversity conservation and Sweden's ratification of the European Landscape Convention. This has resulted in an increased scientific and official interest in vanishing values in the rural landscape, where parts of Eastern Europe, such as the Maramures district in Romania, have been used as model examples of land use regimes which in the past was common in Sweden. In this context, the dilemma of romanticizing peasants' use of land is highlighted and discussed more than has hitherto been done. This paper sheds light on some paradoxes inherent in official policies in relation to land use practices concerning the management of rural landscapes in Sweden, and relates the Swedish situation to a contrasting example of landscape practice in Romania. We discuss the concept of landscape care in relation to the construction and perception of landscape values and valuable landscapes through the lenses of rural realities and official policies. When Swedish authorities engage in the promotion of landscape care, they tend to work with slices of land, specific predefined values and individual farmers, and they often disregard the need to treat the landscape as a socio-ecological complex dynamic in space and time. We discuss how environmental policy generally could be improved through the adoption of a more inclusive and flexible approach towards aiding the different aims inherent in multifunctional rural landscapes. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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